Nick Vazquez of Jersey City’s Azucar is justly proud of his Cuban sandwiches — he takes no shortcuts, marinating the pork for a day in cumin, oregano, lime and sour orange juice, and “a lot, a lot of garlic.” The slices of slow-cooked pork are layered with Virginia ham for a hint of sweetness, Swiss cheese and thinly sliced kosher pickles. All that is tucked inside rolls baked especially for him in North Bergen.

Too bad you can’t find it on the menu most of the time. It’s strictly a lunch item, although you can order it from the medianoche menu on weekends. “It’s an $8 sandwich and it will feed two people,” Vazquez says. “Guess what? $8 is not going to pay my rent.”

But that may have to change.

Celebrity chef Bobby Flay challenged Vazquez, a Cuban native, to a Cuban sandwich throwdown for Flay’s eponymous Food Network show, which aired last week. Vazquez won, and demand for the sandwich has not let up.

“ ‘Nick, there’s going to be a line out your door only looking for a Cuban sandwich.’ ”

Here are the ingredients for “Throwdown With Bobby Flay”: An unsuspecting chef is approached by the Food Network to appear on a special; while preparing a signature dish, Flay turns up to challenge the chef, putting his own spin on it. A two-person panel decides who prevails.

Vazquez says he always figured “Throwdown” was fixed, and couldn’t imagine the featured chefs didn’t know what was going down. Then it happened to him. Producers followed him at the restaurant, in the Newport section of Jersey City, and around Hudson County for three days; Flay showed up on the fourth.

“I said, ‘You know, this guy is not going to beat me,’ ” Vazquez says. “I took it very personally.”

Flay’s fatal flaw, Vazquez says, was using pork shoulder instead of leg; shoulder is more tender and shreds easier, so Flay ended up with a pulled pork sandwich — a delicious pulled pork sandwich, Vazquez admits, but it wasn’t a Cuban.

Still, Vazquez was sweating bullets.

“He’s Bobby Flay, let’s be honest. He’s an $8 million guy for the Food Network. You gotta be impressed. I’m just a lonely guy in Newport trying to make a living.”